Runaway Alice by Frances Salomon Murphy

The office at the State Home and School was quiet and pleasant. It was a sunny room with plants on the window sills and on the desk. The only sound Alice heard was the rustling of papers as Miss Cannon looked through her folder. She looked up and smiled at Alice, who sat on a straight chair, looking down at her new black shoes. Alice also wore a new blue cotton dress with a white collar and new white socks. Beside her chair was a cardboard box and in the box were two cotton dresses, two pairs of socks, two nightgowns, a sweater, a pair of rubbers, a comb, and a toothbrush, all new. Every girl placed in a foster home from the State Home and School carried with her the same clothing in an identical cardboard box.

“Well, Alice,” the young woman said, “I’m going in to see Dr. Wagner now. I’ll be with you very shortly and we’ll go to your new foster home.”

Alice Wright lifted her gray eyes and looked at Miss Cannon but she did not say a word. She was about twelve years old, a thin child with straight, light brown hair which was cut just below her ears.

Alice did not answer Miss Cannon. She did not answer because she could not. She was trying hard to be calm. She was determined not to show how she really felt. She would not let anyone see that she was terrified, that the words “foster home” alarmed her. She began to study her new shoes again, and Miss Cannon went into Dr. Wagner’s office.

In the office, Dr. Wagner sat studying some papers. He was a middle-aged man with kind brown eyes and a worried expression on his thin face.

“Miss Cannon,” he said, “I am not at all sure that Alice Wright ought to be placed just at this time. She is an intelligent girl; she is quiet and obedient and we have no trouble with her — if we keep our eyes on her. But you know what her trouble is — she runs away. She comes back quietly when we go for her, but it is a very bad thing for a child her age to run away. No telling what might happen to her.”

“You say she always runs to the same place,” began Miss Cannon.

“Yes, here’s the address. Mrs. John Baker, 210 Blackwell Street. It’s in a miserable section of the city, the second floor of a shabby old house. Alice was placed there by her father for six years after the death of her mother, so it’s the only home she remembers. Still it is hard to understand why she goes back there. Mrs. Baker makes it clear that she doesn’t want her. She has five children of her own, is a nervous, overworked woman who screams at them most of the time. Her house is dirty and the children aren’t kept too clean. Mrs. Baker calls us as soon as Alice arrives and demands that we take her back immediately. Of course, we go there as soon as she is reported missing.”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Cannon, “she’s had too much family, life with the Bakers. She may think that all families are like that.”

“Then why does she go back there?” asked Dr. Wagner.

Miss Cannon gathered up her papers. She stood up.

“It may be that she’s looking for a real home without knowing it. I hope I have the right one for her. Good-bye, Doctor.”

As the door to the office opened and Miss Cannon came out, Alice’s thin shoulders straightened even more and she drew her two new shoes back under her chair. She heard a clear voice saying, “Shall we be going, Alice?” When she looked up she saw again the young woman with blue eyes and light hair, and a smile that was even more warm and friendly. Alice picked up her box and followed without a backward glance.

Only when they were in the car Miss Cannon spoke again. “I’ll tell you about your new home as we drive there. It’s in the city but in a different part of the city from Mrs. Baker’s. There are three people in the family, Mr. and Mrs. Jordan and their daughter, Marilyn, who is ten years old. The Jordans want someone to be a friend to their child. They are nice people.”

Alice spoke for the first time. “How do you know?”

Miss Cannon gave her a quick glance and then answered, “I don’t absolutely know, Alice, but I have every reason to believe it’s a good home. You see, before we use a home, we get the names of six people as references. One has to be a clergyman, one a doctor, and four are friends of the family. If any one of these six people doesn’t approve of the home, then we don’t use it. Of course, I visit the home myself. I go through the house and I talk to the foster mother. If I don’t like the home, then I don’t use it.”

“Oh,” said Alice, but she still felt uneasy.

“You must not think,” went on Miss Cannon, “that I am just leaving you in this home. You’ll see a great deal of me. I shall visit you often at home and I shall see you at school, too. I’ll take you to the dentist and to the doctor’s every so often. And Alice, I want you always to tell me if you’re not happy. You are my chief interest, not the Jordans. I want you to be happy.”

“Am I going to a regular school?” asked Alice.

“Yes, you are. There is just one thing I wish you would promise. Please don’t go to Mrs. Baker’s.”

Alice set her mouth stubbornly and said nothing.

“Why do you go there?” Miss Cannon asked her. “Do you like Mrs. Baker so much?”

“I don’t like her at all,” Alice replied, “and she doesn’t like me. She says I am too much work because I like to comb my hair and wear clean dresses.”

“Then why do you go there?” Miss Cannon persisted.

“I don’t know,” Alice said helplessly. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The car stopped before a small house, painted white with green blinds. There was a low fence around the neat little yard and there were flowers planted in a flower-bed in the center of the yard. Alice and Miss Cannon were met at the door by a girl with red curls, freckles, and blue eyes. She was chubby but she was pretty. Mrs. Jordan was plump too, and like her daughter she was pretty. Her eyes and hair were brown and she wore a very nice house dress.

“Come in, Miss Cannon,” said Mrs. Jordan. “So this is Alice. You wouldn’t think she was two years older than Marilyn, would you, they are so near the same height. Let me take your box, dear. Don’t you want to see your room? It’s Marilyn’s room, too.”

The bedroom the two girls were to share was papered with a rosebud paper and had furniture painted apple green. There were twin beds, a chair, a bureau, and a dressing-table with a mirror. The closet door stood half open and Alice saw that half the closet was packed tightly with Marilyn’s dresses and coats on hangers. The other half was left empty for Alice’s three dresses and her sweater.

Marilyn showed Alice her dolls and her other toys.

“Don’t you have even one doll?” she asked in amazement. “No,” said Alice fiercely, “I hate dolls. I never play with them.” Alice had put out her hand toward the dolls before Marilyn spoke, but now she drew back her hand.

“Oh,” said Marilyn, “I was going to let you have this one,” and she pointed to a doll with brown curls and blue eyes.

For a moment Alice wavered. She wanted the doll, she wanted to dress it and undress it, to make clothes for it, to tie a ribbon on its hair, but she held firm.

“I wouldn’t want it,” she said.

“Oh,” said Marilyn again.

Suddenly a smile came over Alice’s face, a smile that sweetened her whole expression.

“I love to play hopscotch,” she said. “If you’ll play hopscotch with me, I’ll play dolls with you sometimes.”

“All right,” Marilyn was eager to please. “Do you want to play hopscotch now?”

“No,” said Alice. “I’ll play dolls with you first. This one will be mine.” And she reached for the doll with the brown curls and the blue eyes.